blazing down upon him, and the great heat made him pant as he toiled up
the steep ascent leading to the castle; but he almost ran, he was so
eager to get to the top--and no wonder. It was between eleven and twelve
on a Friday morning, and there was not a penny at home with which to buy
the Sabbath dinner. If hunger is hard to bear on an ordinary day, it is
much worse on the Sabbath, when there is more time to think of it.
As Schmule hastened along, he was far too busy thinking of what had to
be bought on his return to Z----, to look about him, or to keep his ears
open; and so he never heard a horse galloping up the drive, until it was
so close to him that he only saved himself from being ridden over by a
hasty spring on one side.
The rider was a pale-faced youth, with a fowling-piece at his side, and
turned out to be young Baron Wladislaus Wodnicki, who had come home to
spend his summer holidays. He laughed heartily when he saw what a fright
he had given the Jewish boy, who was still trembling too much to
remember to touch his cap. He then turned his horse and rode slowly up
to Schmule, till he almost touched him. The latter meanwhile pressed as
close as he could to the wall of rock that bordered the drive.
"Why didn't you touch your cap to me, you rascal?" asked the young
Baron, raising his riding-whip.
"Because--I--was--so--frightened," stammered Schmule.
The young man lowered his riding-whip, and after a few moments' thought,
burst into a loud laugh.
"You're afraid of the horse, are you?" he asked; "very well, then, go
and stand there," pointing to the middle of the road. "Don't you hear
me? _There!_" he repeated, angrily; and the boy obeyed with manifest
terror. "Now, then," he continued, "don't move from there till I allow
you--do you understand? It'll be the worse for you if you move," and
snatching up his gun, he went on. "I swear, by all the saints, that I'll
shoot you down like a mad dog if you move!"
After saying this he rode on, and then turned again, and galloped down
the drive straight at the boy.
Schmule watched the horse approaching him with the fascination of
terror--a mist came over his eyes--in another moment he jumped out of
the way and--the horse, instead of hitting him, only knocked the basket
of sweetmeats from his back, scattering its contents all over the dusty
road. The boy also fell, but only from nervous fear.
"You did move, you scoundrel!" cried Baron Wladislaus, putting his gun
to his shoulder. Suddenly he changed his mind, and restoring his
fowling-piece to its place, rushed at the boy with his riding-whip. The
latter, in order to avoid as much as possible the violent blows that
were aimed at him, now with the end and now with the knob of the whip,
threw himself at the young man's feet.
All at once Schmule uttered a heart-rending shriek, and fell senseless
on the ground.
And then Baron Wladislaus rode away.
An hour later a kind-hearted peasant took the unconscious boy in his
hay-cart to the little Jewish town, and gave him to his mother. It is
unnecessary to say what the poor woman felt when she saw her boy's
disfigured countenance and senseless state--such things are better not
described.
The doctor came, restored Schmule to consciousness, and washed and bound
up his wounds. He said that the boy would soon be quite well again, but
that the sight of his right eye was gone for ever.
Schmule had an unexpected visitor on the first day that he was able to
get out of bed. Fat Gregor, the young Baron's valet, came to see him. He
brought the boy two ducats, and told him that his master was ready and
willing to pay both the doctor and apothecary, if he would forbear
making any complaint to the magistrate of his conduct.
"Go!" cried Schmule--that was all that he said--but his remaining eye
glared so savagely at Gregor, that the latter thought discretion the
better part of valor, and beat a hasty retreat. As soon as he got back
to the castle, he went to his master, and said: "Beg your pardon, Herr
Baron, you've sent the Jew stark-staring mad as well as knocked out his
eye--he was more like a wild beast than anything else."
When Schmule was able to go out again, his first walk was to the court
of justice. The leader of the synagogue offered to go with him, but he
said he wanted to go alone. "Thank you," he said; "but it isn't
necessary. I am no longer a child--that blow has made me ten years
older. Besides that, I only want justice."
He went to the judge and made his complaint. The trial began, and was
carried on as--well as all such trials were in those days. What chance
had a poor Jewish boy against a Polish noble long ago? None! But the
trial had one merit: it was short. The persons interested in it were not
long kept in suspense as to what the verdict was to be. All was settled
in the space of a month. Schmule was then cited to appear before the
court, and the Herr Mandatar said to him very sternly: "Your story was a
lie, Jew! You did not get out of the Herr Baron's way, but insisted on
pressing close up to the horse, and so you were accidentally struck by
the riding-whip. You may be thankful that Baron Wladislaus has been good
enough to pardon you for making such a calumnious charge against him,
otherwise you might have been tried for perjury! Now--go!"
Schmule went home.
When he entered his mother's kitchen, the good woman was so startled by
the look on his face, that she exclaimed, in terror: "Child, child! what
is the matter? Has anything worse happened?"
"Yes," he answered, "something much worse--justice has been denied me."
His voice here died away into an indistinct murmur, but at last his
mother heard him say: "I will do as the Herr Mandatar advised me--I will
be grateful for Baron Wladislaus's kindness...."
"Son!" cried the old woman, in a voice of agony. "I know what you're
going to do. I can read it in your face. You're going to steal into the
castle and murder him in his sleep!..."
"No," replied Schmule, with a smile. "That wouldn't do at all, for they
would hang me for murder, and who would take care of you then? No, my
vengeance must be of another kind--I must become a rich man."
"God has darkened your understanding, my son," moaned the old woman. But
she wept still more bitterly when Schmule told her that he had made up
his mind to go to Barnow. He sold the only things that belonged to him,
which would not be required now that he was going away--his bed and
bedding. The sale of these articles brought him five gulden in all,
because at the last moment he threw in some prayer-books that he did not
want. As he was going away he promised to send his mother a share of his
earnings.
He went to Barnow with his little store of five gulden, or about five
florins in English money, in his pocket, and there set up a little pack,
consisting of matches, soap, pomade, and feathers. He sold his
merchandise at the inns and in the streets. And, as he was untiring in
his labors, and spent very little on himself, he was able both to
support his mother and to lay by a little money.
In two years' time he was so far beforehand with the world, that he gave
up this mode of gaining his livelihood, and bought a large store of
goods such as country people require. He then began to travel about the
country-side as a peddler; and a very hard life he led. Like Nathan
Bilkes, the father of Frau Christine, he wandered about, with a great
pack on his back, from village to village, and from fair to fair. He was
seldom paid in money for his goods, but received fruit and skins
instead. This circumstance, however, was of advantage to him.
After having worked as a peddler for three years, he returned to Barnow,
and set up a stall for small-wares in a corner of the market-place. His
success was so great that he was soon able to rent a real shop, and to
keep his mother more comfortably. But he remained as abstemious as
before with regard to himself. His food consisted for the most part of
dry bread, for he only allowed himself the luxury of a bit of meat upon
the Sabbath.
His mother died when he was twenty-three--that is, ten years after he
left Z----. She died in his arms. When he had buried her, and the eight
days of mourning were over, he went to Czernowitz, which is a larger
town than Barnow. As chance would have it, Baron Wladislaus Wodnicki,
who had just taken the management of his estates into his own hands,
drove past him in his phaeton, as he was leaving the little town of
Z----. "I am glad to have seen him," said Schmule to his traveling
companion; "for otherwise grief might have made me idle for some time to
come."
Schmule was now alone in the world, but still he worked as hard as if he
had had a large family to support, and so he gradually became well to do
in the world. He was much respected as an honorable man, fair in all his
dealings; and this, added to his wealth, enabled him to gain the hand in
marriage of one of the richest heiresses in Czernowitz, in spite of his
having only one eye. After his marriage he increased his business
considerably, and became well known in the commercial world as Samuel
Runnstein, the dry-salter. And again, as if this did not give him enough
to do, he set up a large wine business, in addition to the other.
Schmule now showed for the first time to their full extent the marvelous
powers of work and determination of character that he possessed. He
traveled all over Germany and France, Russia and Moldavia, setting up
agencies everywhere. Ten years later he was looked upon as the richest
merchant in the whole district.
At length his wife died, leaving him a little daughter. Schmule now sold
the good-will of both the wine and dry-salting businesses, and became a
corn-merchant. He bought in Podolia, Bessarabia, and Moldavia, and sold
in the Western markets. There was only one landowner from whom he would
buy nothing, and that was Baron Wladislaus Wodnicki: although the
bailiff offered him very good bargains, he was not to be tempted. The
unfortunate bailiff had rather a hard time of it--he found it so
difficult to provide his master with a large and constant supply of
money. For Wladislaus succeeded in doing what the old Baron had never
done: every month he spent as much as his estates brought in in the
year. His wife, a French lady, did her part in squandering her husband's
wealth. And so the bailiff came to Schmule and begged him to buy some
corn, but he refused, saying with a strange smile: "I made a vow more
than five-and-twenty years ago that I would only do _one_ stroke of
business with your master; and the time for that has not come yet...."
Years passed, and Schmule grew richer and richer. He married again, and
his wife brought him a large fortune. Then came the year 1848, with its
revolutionary restlessness; and Schmule, who knew how to turn everything
to his advantage, became a millionaire. He was now known as Herr
Sigismund Runnstein, and the Russian Government employed him to
provision their army in Hungary. By this means he made a great deal more
money. After that he gave up business, and when any one wanted him to
undertake some new project, he refused, alleging that he preferred to
wait.
He had not long to wait. It is quite possible to squander even a
colossal fortune if one has a mind to do it. Two years later, Baron
Wladislaus and his wife were obliged to leave Paris. They returned to
Z----, but even there they found it difficult to get enough money to
live on; for their estates were so deeply mortgaged that not a blade of
grass could really be said to belong to them, and their creditors became
more and more troublesome every day. After a time, the Baroness went
back to her own people in France, and the Baron, who had to remain at
Z---- whether he would or not, sought comfort first in champagne, and
afterward, when that became too expensive a luxury, in schnapps.
At length one day he found himself no longer beset by his creditors.
Schmule had bought up all the claims against him, although they amounted
to many thousand pounds sterling. "It's the first bad bargain that
Schmule Runnstein ever made," said all his friends. But the general
astonishment was much increased when it was discovered that he
apparently let things alone after that, and took no steps to foreclose.
But in spite of appearances, he had not been idle. He sent a petition to
the Emperor, begging for leave to buy an estate; for in those days the
Galician Jews were legally incapacitated from holding land. He even went
to Vienna, to support his cause in person. But all in vain. "If I had
committed murder," said Schmule when he came home, "I might perhaps have
persuaded the Government to let me off; but this request they will not
grant."
He wandered about for many days, lost in deep and melancholy thought. At
last, after a terrible struggle, he determined on the course he meant to
pursue. He went to his wife, whom he loved dearly, and said to her: "I
have made up my mind to be baptized and become a Christian. Don't look
so frightened, and don't cry--listen to me quietly. I _must_ do it. My
whole life would otherwise be a lie, a folly, a failure. I must become
possessor of the Wodnicki estates. I have lived poorly and worked
hard--harder perhaps than any other man on the face of the earth. And
now it is not a reward that I demand, but my just right. This is the
_only_ way that I can attain it, so it must be done. But you shall
choose for yourself; I leave you free. How dearly I love you I need not
say, but still I repeat--I will not oppose your decision, whatever it
may be...."
She loved him too, but she could not give up her religion, and so they
parted.
Schmule became a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and took the name
of Sigismund Ronnicki. His daughter by his first marriage, who was
nearly grown up, was baptized at the same time, and received the name of
Maria.
The conversion of the rich Jew and his daughter was the theme of endless
conversation in the neighborhood.
The day after he had been received into the Christian Church, Schmule
foreclosed all the mortgages he held upon Wladislaus's estates, and, as
was to be expected, the land went at a very low price. Schmule bought
it. The Baron disappeared--no one knew where he had gone; and Schmule
took up his abode at the castle of Z----, with his daughter Maria.
In the year 1854, when the army was so much increased that the state was
greatly in want of money, Schmule bought himself the title of "Freiherr"
for a large sum.
But still he used to say, "I haven't got all that I want yet--my full
right."
But the time was fast approaching when this strange man's last wish was
to be fulfilled.
One day an announcement was made in the Polish newspapers, to the effect
that a comfortable home and suitable maintenance had been provided for
that irredeemable vagabond and drunkard, Baron Wladislaus Wodnicki, by
the kindness of a noble-minded benefactor.
And so it was. The "noble-minded benefactor" was Baron Sigismund
Ronnicki, who had literally picked the "vagabond" out of the streets of
Barnow, where he was wandering houseless and forlorn, and had taken him
home to his castle at Z----. Wladislaus was given everything he wanted
except--schnapps. And why was this, and this alone, denied him? "When he
drinks schnapps," said Schmule, "he forgets everything that has
happened. And I intend that he should remember. I will have my right."
But the "drunkard" was not to be long a source of satisfaction to the
new lord of the castle. At midsummer, in the year following, a great
feast was given by Schmule, in honor of his daughter's marriage to a
Magyar noble. During the evening Wodnicki succeeded in getting some
schnapps. He drank freely, and then staggered out of doors, and down the
drive in which he had met the Jewish boy fifty years before.
He never returned to the castle.
Next morning he was found lying dead under the steep wall of rock that
bounded one side of the drive. Whether he had fallen over the precipice
in his drunken blindness, or had thrown himself over, no one ever knew.
This is one of the many strange stories that take place on this earth of
ours.
THE PICTURE OF CHRIST.
(1868.)
... How distinctly I can see the little town even now, with its narrow,
tortuous, and gloomy streets, its ruined castle on the top of the hill,
and its stately monastery near the river! It is to this last that I wish
to draw the reader's attention. The Dominican monastery is a huge pile
of buildings surrounded by a wall in which one can still see the traces
of the old Tartar attacks of long ago. Within the wall is a confused
mass of chapels and dwelling-houses, separated from each other by damp,
moss-grown courtyards, or by sparsely covered grass-plots. I often went
there in my boyhood, and used to like playing among the graves in the
little churchyard. I also delighted in listening to the echo of my
footsteps in the great empty refectory; but I liked best of all to go to
the "Abbot's Chapel," a small Byzantine building which was known by that
name, and look up at a picture that had been hung there a short time
before. It had been painted by the proud and beautiful Graefin Jadwiga
Bortynska, lady of the manor of Barnow. It was a wonderful
picture--breathing love and peace. Christ was represented standing on
vaporous clouds, His hands stretched out in blessing over the earth. The
pale face, which was, as it were, framed in black curls, had an
expression of divine love and sublime goodness--perfect man and perfect
God.
But I did not think of that when I first saw the picture, for I was then
only a thoughtless boy of twelve years old. It was on a bright, warm
autumn day that I saw it first. An hour after it was hung up in its
place, little Wladik, the sexton's son, showed it to me. The sunshine
was falling full upon it at the time, and I almost started as I saw the
life-like figure in its dark frame.
"Do you know who it is?" I asked my school-fellow.
"How can you ask?" he exclaimed with boyish indignation. "It is our Lord
Jesus Christ, whom the Jews crucified."
"No, Wladik," I answered with the utmost decision, "it isn't; it's
Bocher David, who used to teach me until last spring."
Wladik was very angry, and scolded me well for saying such a dreadful
thing, but he could not convince me that I was wrong: I knew what I
knew. When I went home in the evening I told my father about the
picture.
"Silly child," he said with a smile; "who could have painted it?"
"Our Frau Graefin," I replied.
My father looked grave. "Well, well," he said thoughtfully, "it is
almost incredible...."
"What?" I asked quickly. But he told me to be quiet.
I should not then have understood what he meant; but I heard the story
afterward when I was older--the sad story of that picture of Christ in
the chapel at Barnow--and learned that it was also, as I had supposed, a
portrait of my old teacher, Bocher David.
It is a strange story, reader, and will seem all the more extraordinary
to you, if you have been brought up in a Western home, and have been
accustomed from your infancy to civilization and tolerance of others. It
is also sad, very sad. But do not blame me for that, for my heart
bleeds when I remember this over-true tale, which must be regarded as
one of the dark riddles of life, and as the doing of that eternal,
inscrutable Power that deals out darkness or light, happiness or misery,
to the weak human heart....
I will now tell you the story.
* * * * *
The small town of Barnow lies in the middle of an immense plain. Close
to it is the only hill for several miles around, and on the top of this
little hill are the ruins of a castle where the lords of Barnow, or
Barecki Starosts, used to live. The last of this race, an old man, weak
in mind as in body, now lives in his cheerless house by the river-side;
while the new lord of the manor, Graf Bortynski, lives in a new and
splendid castle in the plain, far away from the one-storied cottages,
the rickety little houses, the narrow, airless streets of Barnow, and
all the want and misery of the people who inhabit them.
But these inhabitants of Barnow are happy, their streets are light and
airy, and their houses comfortable, in comparison with those who have to
live in that part of the town which is built in the unhealthy marshes
near the river. It is always dark and gloomy there, however brightly the
sun may shine, and dark pestiferous vapors fill the air, although the
meadows beyond may be full of flowers. And this wretched part of the
town is the most thickly inhabited of all, for it is the Ghetto, the
Jews' quarter, or, as they call it in Barnow, the "Gasse."
David was the strangest and most mysterious-looking figure in the
"Gasse," which was anyhow only too full of such people--for when plants
are kept in the dark they are apt to take eccentric forms. He was the
son of the former rabbi of the town. Even in his boyhood he had been the
pride and delight of his father, and indeed of the whole community. His
bright young intelligence was early able to comprehend the secrets of
the Talmud, its subtleties and riddles, and the boy was looked upon with
wondering admiration by all. For, pale and delicate as he was, the Jews
of Barnow believed that he would live to become a great scribe, learned
in the Scriptures. So they forgave his hastiness and fits of passion.
In course of time the old rabbi died, and left his widow and only child
nothing but his great library and the love of the whole congregation.
The community did what they could for the widow and orphan, or rather
did what they thought proper and necessary. David and his mother were
allowed to remain in the small back rooms of their old house, and the
front rooms were given to the new rabbi. It was right and fitting that
it should be so, but it wounded the child's feelings. David no longer
heard the words of praise that he had been accustomed to, although he
deserved them more and more every day; so he became ever more defiant,
and was consequently very much disliked. It happened one day that he
excelled the rabbi in his interpretation of a passage of the Talmud, and
afterward told different people that he had done so, and thus made an
enemy in the community. He was now as much disliked as he had once been
praised. His position grew unbearable. But as long as his mother lived,
he remained at Barnow. She was the only person he obeyed, and she alone
could sometimes bring a smile to the grave, sad face of her son. One
morning soon after her death, which happened when he was fifteen, David
disappeared. No one knew what had become of him. He was soon forgotten,
and was only spoken of now and then as the late rabbi's son, a wise and
learned youth, but wicked and wrong-headed to an extraordinary degree.
He remained away for twelve long years.
At length he returned unexpectedly, and rented one of the small rickety
houses in the little Podolian town. On the following day he went to the
elders of the synagogue, and to those men who were appointed to nurse
the sick, and told them that he had determined to devote his life to the
care of the sick and dying. He said that he knew many simples, and a
good deal about the art of healing, and entreated them to grant his
request, and not to spare him when he could be of any use. They were
astonished at his resolution, and praised him for his goodness. But as
time went on they learned really to appreciate his help, and blessed
him; then once more his praises were repeated from mouth to mouth as of
yore. But there was a certain air of mystery about him, for he made no
intimacies in the "Gasse." No one knew what studies he was engaged in
when his night-lamp burned till early morning; no one knew what were his
resources, or where he had been during his absence from Barnow. The
rabbi, who had long forgotten David's boyish faults, and my
father--because he was the town doctor--used to see a good deal of him,
and they were the only people with whom he was on familiar terms. It was
discovered through them that he had been in the Holy Land, that he had
seen the countries of the West, and that he had even crossed the great
ocean, and had spent some time in "Amerikum," as it was called in the
language of the "Gasse." It was said that he could speak many foreign
tongues, that he knew everything, and could do whatever he chose,
whether good or evil, for he was a master of the "Cabala," and well
acquainted with the great and terrible secrets of the "Sohar," the
Cabalist primer; and, finally, that he had sworn to himself that he
would never marry, and so he was still a "bocher," or bachelor.